Once upon a time there was an emperor
who was at odds with the views of the Pope....
...so, a spy sneaked into the court
disguised as a falcon hunter
sending his reports to Rome every night.
The guards discovered the carrier pigeons; an arrow stopped them every night
The poor spy, Gotfred was his name, loyal to the Pope and unsuspecting .......
.....went on searching and investigating Frederick's misdeeds
“It is a sacrilege, Holy Father,” he wrote, “Frederick tries to understand and not to believe.”
Muslims are teachers and scholars! He wants to live in peace with the Antichrist...
... so he revived a school of medicine based on proof and study, not on the Scriptures!
He reads love poems, not Gospels and prayers...
He says the emperor must lead the people, and the Pope only souls
He has embraced the theories of an Arab who changed the way numbers are written.
One night Gotfred found his pigeon pierced, and realized he was in danger
He had always been faithful to his religion and his Pope
Every way out was guarded
He decided to leap from the battlements into the void, hoping to fly
He was so familiar with the falcons that he felt as though he were one of them
No one knows how it ended, or even whether the story is true...
historians may investigate....
but if this story has been invented....
it doesn't matter....